Children's sewing machines have enjoyed wide use heretofore. In many cases such machines are constructed primarily to resemble the sewing machines employed by adults. A principal objective has been to produce a sewing machine which would have popular market appeal stemming from a child's basic desire to emulate the parents. Through the years, however, such machines have undergone substantial modification to the point where today they are capable of thread concatenation to produce a seam in much the same manner as a standard adult household machine. Public acceptance of such machines has increased over the years until today there is a substantial market for them. The primary motivation for the child in desiring these machines remains the desire to emulate the parent. It has not always been possible to incorporate in the child's machine, due to cost limitations, the latest advances in design and function which have evolved in connection with the development and modernization of the household machine. Yet, in order to maintain the high level of interest in such machines it is important that the child's machine resemble the adult's household machine as closely as possible both aesthetically and functionally.
As is well known to persons skilled in the art of sewing machine manufacture, improvements in thread handling techniques have led to the replacement of the heretofore used vertical spool pin for mounting of the supply of needle thread by the horizontal spool pin in many instances. It has been found, for example, that the unwinding of the thread axially from a horizontally mounted spool, and the orientation of the unwound thread via an axially arranged thread guide, enhances the feeding of the thread to the needle for the stitch forming process. This feature has, therefore, been widely adopted for adult household machines. However, significant numbers of children's machines have already been produced which have lost a certain degree of marketability because they were manufactured to accommodate the previously conventional vertical spool pin. The need exists, therefore, for a simple, inexpensive manner of converting such existing machines so that they resemble in appearance the adult horizontal spool pin machines and are nevertheless functional.